Pro Kabaddi League franchise owners nervous of Star power

Ronnie Screwvala, the owner of U Mumba, also sees media rights as a major opportunity for the league and team ownersGaurav Laghate | ET Bureau | December 03, 2018, 07:46 IST

All is not well with Pro Kabaddi League (PKL), touted as one of the most successful sports leagues, which clocked the fastest growth in terms of viewership and advertising revenues in its first five seasons.

The current season, however, has seen a rather tepid response in terms of ratings. The viewership is plummeting despite various efforts from the broadcaster Star India that include airing the matches on mass entertainment channel Star Gold, and heavy marketing push.

Star India, the media rights holder, is also majority interest owner in Mashal Sports, the league organiser. And the control of Star India is what’s making some of the franchise owners a bit nervous on whether or not the league will be able to unlock its true potential in terms of media rights exploitation given Star’s conflict of interest.

Media rights of the league are up for renewal next year for 2020 edition, and going by the first five seasons, the franchise owners were pretty confident of a major windfall next year, something akin to the media rights auctions of the Indian Premier League (IPL).

“The PKL has been a very satisfying experience all around. The growth of the league and the viewership of the sport has been immense and continues to grow,” Abhishek Bachchan, Bollywood star and owner of Jaipur Pink Panther told ET.

He said that the potential for the league promoters and the team owners looks very positive. “With the media rights up for fresh bidding next year I think we will see a big jump in the kind of figures we associate with the PKL.”

Ronnie Screwvala, owner of U Mumba, also sees media rights as a major opportunity for the league and team owners. According to Screwvala, Mashal Sports should auction the TV and digital rights of PKL separately for India and overseas markets. “I believe the sum of the parts will be bigger than the whole when the rights for Kabaddi get retendered for 2020 edition,” he said. “India is a critical market for all new generation content and media companies and I see Apple, Google, Facebook , Amazon , Reliance Jio and Sony Pictures Networks (SPN) being strong contenders to either form an alliance or bid for the parts of this sport that will only grow over the next 10 years.”

While Screwvala feels that the combined rights that will come up for tender in 2020 for the next 10 years will be worth more than $1.5 billion, he points out that Mashal Sports will have to act in the favour of the league. “Currently, there is a huge conflict of interest and when we reach out to Mashal, we don’t know if we are talking to the league owner or the broadcaster,” he said.

While team owners are hopeful, some sports experts believe that Star as a broadcaster, will not want an open auction and which is when the team owners will have to put their foot down.